I spent my Valentine's day weekend mostly avoiding really silly, petty things which I don't particularly want to trouble myself over, such as the philosophy of mind mid-term which I am now writing. Yes, you see how this subtle trap works. It starts with me thinking I should clean my room or buy some groceries or otherwise concern myself with absolutely any little detail other than the task at hand, and ends with me wiping my sleepy eyes, typing a twelve-page essay on such delights of metaphysics as the existence of the mind and substance dualism. Yay! In keeping with my intentions to burn my website and build something useful from the many cheesy and self-indulgent ashes, I also reconstructed my gallery into something altogether better, featuring many of the regular players from my cast of characters. Of course, I also found it completely impossible to avoid St. Valentine's day. Broken and I had a wonderful lunch at an Indian restaurant we discovered by happy accident, and otherwise tried to relax as much as possible in between my frantic dash to work to drop off some files pertaining to my new at-home contract. I ate absolutely no chocolate, and I'm tragically so impoverished that I could not swoop into Godiva such as to buy any -- but oh the desire was real. Instead I focused my general bewilderment and distrust of the forced and token sentimental gestures which come of a (romantically) statutory holiday like this one into a genuine concern with making the people I care about feel loved. My general philosophy towards Valentine's has to do with my observation that if only we did the spent the entire year doing things we traditionally do on February 14, such as buying somebody flowers or chocolate or silly cards or saying "I love you," people would really be a great deal happier and more emotionally fulfilled. Roses on Valentine's day seem rather hollow and insincere in comparison to a handful of daisies given in affection on an average Wednesday in January (try it. Florists sell daisies, and nothing is sillier or sweeter), or whatever random "just because" day you happen to think of. I used to balk at the sight of young couples mushily engaged in all manners of what probably amounts to some level of foreplay or another in public, but quite honestly I'm a terribly affectionate person (some might say, "a real suck,") and I can now at least view these people's delusions of true love (I must maintain some cynicism) as charming and sweet. I mean, affection is what you make it. Although I've been known to procrastinate on the occasional essay or study session, in the matters of love I'm always hard at work, forever scheming and plotting new ways to make someone feel special.

Now, you can be a naysayer and call that smothering of you like, and maybe you're right, but maybe what's really the issue is your fear of true intimacy, you big sourpuss.

In any case, my feelings towards my sweet friend whom I have not yet been able to apply a pseudonym to, prompted me to find some extra creative way of making her feel happy and cared for. Granted, I've never met a stronger person; someone who believes in herself more than anybody in spite of a million hardships in her life that might break another person without shame. I'm becoming a stronger person simply for knowing her, because she shows me the importance of taking happiness and strength from within yourself, versus looking for it in the esteem of others -- but in the larger spheres of her life there aren't even that many people who believe in her at all, let alone as much as she does. Indeed, some people actively try to tear her self esteem down for reasons I can only guess at, but I suppose it's some misguided attempt to turn her into a needy, helpless, dependent person. It's not that this has much chance of success, but absolutely no one has the right to play these sorts of mind games with anybody, and I want to be an agent for the other side so as to counterbalance as many of the bad things as I can.

So, I thought about it and thought about it on Friday while on the way to work, and I must declare my amazement (in spite of my hatred for Ottawa's buses) at the inspirational power of a bus ride. I used to carry a walkman with me whenever I commuted, but now I just carry a journal and a pen and let the frustrations of dealing with mass transit turn my thoughts inwards towards a more creative brain state. I'm reminded of my favourite Motel 9 song, Time Machines. They're an Ottawa band, so there's a very slight connection to what I'm talking about.

TIME MACHINES
by motel 9

A lot of people don't realize what's really going on here.
They view life as a bucha...unconnected incidents and things.
They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything.

Suppose you're thinking about a...plate of shrimp.
Suddenly somebody'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp. Out of the blue. No explanation. No point in looking for one, either. It's all part of the cosmic unconsciousness.

You know the way everybody's into weirdness right now?
Books, in the all supermarkets about Bermuda Triangles...ufo's...., how the Mayans invented television? I don't read them books.
And The way I see it, is that they're the same. There ain't no difference between a flying saucer and a time machine. There all hung up on specifics. They miss out on the whole thing.

Take South America, for example. In South America, thousands of people go missing every year. Nobody knows where they go. They just, like, disappear. But if you think about it for a minute, you'll realize something. I mean, they had all these people, right?

(yeah, I guess)

But where did those people come from? Hm?
I'll tell you where they come from. The future!
Where do all these people disappear to, hm?
(the past?)
THAT'S RIGHT! How'd they get there?
(how the fuck do I know?)
FLYING SAUCERS. Which are really..., yeah you got it..., TIME MACHINES!

I think a lot about this kind of stuff. I do my best thinking on the bus. That's how come I don't drive, see? I mean, I don't know how to drive. I don't wanna know how. I don't wanna learn, see?

The more you drive... the less intelligent you are.

Anyway, my idea was simple but elegant. What I decided to do for my friend was heed my own advice on making everyday a kind of Valentine's day, and instead of just handing over a token gesture of flowers or chocolate on this one crummy Sunday, I decided to spend each and every day for the next year reminding my friend what a wonderful person she is -- just in case, you know, she forgets or something. My plan is simply to construct three hundred and sixty-five little cards (not all at once, fool!) over the year, and each day, have a new one ready. Each little card or poem or letter will bear my thoughts about why my friend is a wonderful person worthy of love for love's sake. I'm thinking of getting her dearer friends involved too, like Broken and my older brother's girlfriend. And my older brother, actually, and anyone else I can think of who knows and loves her. They can all contribute ideas as they occur. Now, it sounds like a lot, but really -- if you care about somebody, there's no end to the beautiful things you can notice about that person. The opening page to my website is testament to that. Broken conjured up all those nifty reasons just for me. So whenever I see my friend, be it daily or weekly or whatever, she gets a new card, or however many have been adding up since the last time we were together. She seemed extremely happy when I gave her the wax-sealed letter today which talked of this desire, and I'm hoping that over the year it really will make her smile to have someone so deeply comitted to reminding her of how special and wonderful she is.

Anyway, back to work. I hope you call had devastatingly romantic weekends, but if you're anything like me you mostly had realistic ones. Well, at least you can love yourselves, lonely hearts. You only need one hand to read my webpage.

I indeed caught a bus. If I'd stopped to tie my shoes, or stretch, or eat a tasty nugat treat (Broken's mother has been besieging us with Egyptian desserts lately), I would surely have missed it, but as it was I made it out the door and ran around the corner just as the bus did. To my chagrin, of course, the bus was one of the wacky rush-hour buses packed with teenagers from a recently fled high school, and as the bus driver then immediately went on his break, I stood in the aisle (because the seats were all occupied by pimply adolescent bottoms -- no offense to pimply adolescents) fretting and panting and twitching and impatiently hoping that maybe, just maybe the bus would actually start moving soon. It's a really unhealthy thing when you contemplate marching up to the front of the bus and proceeding to punch and assault the bus driver viciously until he either capitulates or you throw him out the front door and drive the goddam bus yourself to school just so you won't be as late for a class. Indeed, when I snap, I'm pretty sure I'll do exactly that. But I'll probably also think that there are aliens after me, too, adding even more of a sense of urgency to my mission of destruction.

So although I caught the bus I needed, and tensely sat out the entire forty-minute journey to school without bursting into tears, I was ultimately rewarded by the sight of the two buses I could have possibly caught to take me to campus drifting lazily past my eyes as we came down Bronson avenue towards Carleton. This was most frustrating. I won't repeat the dialogue I had with whatever gods I don't actually believe in as I marched, trudged, and ran across Carleton's rather expansive campus, but slipping on ice, stomping across the snow, and being splashed with water as other students zipped past in their lovely, warm, comfortable automobiles inspired me to say a couple of colourful things. At this point I was nearly an hour late for class, but I still had to find a computer lab so that I could at least print my now shamefully late essay and maybe even hand it in.

Carleton is peppered with labs, and the unicentre even has a small, dedicated print station which turned out to be my salvation, even though the toner was running low and each philosophically relevant page was covered in spots and uglies. Still, as the tenth and final page of my assignment came inching out of the laser printer, I was glad and relieved that it printed alright (I think; I probably should have proofread it), and reached for my title page and bibliography so that I could staple it together. I reached into my bag for the stapler I'd thoughtfully grabbed in my mad dash out the door, and

DISCOVERED THAT IT DID NOT IN FACT CONTAIN A SINGLE STAPLE.

There must be some way to adequately put you into the state of mind I was in at this point. I think I just felt like I should be waking up from this terrible nightmare at any point now. That's how my nightmares end -- I never dream about monsters or wolves or falling off a cliff; instead I dream about socially unpleasant situations (like fighting with a friend or earning the contempt of a professor) and then, when the entire episode has become a terrible soap opera ending with me being miserable and frightened and abandoned, I realize: "Hey, this can't be real life! I'm dreaming!" And then I wake up.

And then I didn't wake up. Instead I began wondering and hoping that maybe somehow I'd find a staple or a paperclip or anything in my briefcase. I could have raced to the unicentre store and purchased myself some staples, but I am down to my last six earthly dollars until my paycheque arrives, and none of those were in my pockets. Instead, I ran to the good people at the Info Carleton kiosk (I will never have anything but good to say about you!) and begged my way into borrowing a staple. I suppose the sight of a large gawky young man only a few doors down from #1 Crying Lane in the cryingist part of Cry-a-lot City inspired them to a little generosity. Kachunk. There -- my essay was stapled. The title page was crinkly and abused-looking from my terrible awful no good day, but everything was intact. The only problem being that I was now an hour late for class.

So, what did I do? Did I?

• Jump the 22 stories from Dunton tower to my messy but honourable death?
• Barge into class with a gun and a hostage, demanding my essay to be accepted?
• Cover my essay with a light vinaigrette dressing and eat it?
• Cry?

...

Part 2

I hope I didn't build up anyone's hopes too terribly much as to the resolution of this crisis. I assure you that all of the above possibilities were at least romanticized considerations while I deliberated my fate, like a choose-your-own-adventure novel from the 1980s. I certainly didn't have any kind of weapon (beyond my savage tongue and poison pen) on my person, so sadly I could't recklessly endanger any lives (this certainly seemed to be the going contender). In my case, faced with the shame of handing in an essay late and confronted with the indignity of walking into class an hour late, I let my dignity do the talking. I decided to talk to the professor personally after class, and spent a very stoic half an hour pacing quietly back and forth as I waited for the class to end. I mean, I could have toddled off to Mike's Place to watch other people drink tasty beverages (remember: no money), or at least had a seat and enjoyed myself for that duration of time, but in a sick little way I wanted to punish myself for being so abominably late.

I have a hard time in situations where I feel I might be pounced upon for doing something wrong. I intensely dislike criticism in ways that exceed that of most people, cringing from it the way people shy from vicious beatings. My professor is a brilliant, friendly, and wonderful man, but he has a rapier wit and a sharp tongue, and I dreaded the thought that he'd simply cut me down with a devastating, Oscar Wilde-esque comment. Still, I'm an adult (and proud of it, mostly), and as someone who disliked the idea of begging forgiveness even more than a tonguelashing I figured the best approach was to be reasonable and take the consequences as they came. I waited uncomfortably for the end of the class, occasionally exchanging friendly words or nods with friends and classmates as they did things like fill up water bottles from a drinking fountain or slip out to the washroom.

Still, time did pass, as I knew it did (even at the time I anticipated the happy opportunity to look back on that moment from a point in the future), and people began to stir in their seats as they sensed the end of the class had come. I walked in and met my professor's eyes, apologizing for the fact that I was late just as he shouted out to the class that since a number of people had asked for extensions he was providing an alternate due date for them, hefting the pile of papers which had already come. I explained that I just did not have the heart to sneak into a class an hour late, and he smiled and basically said, "Ahh, don't worry about it," taking my assignment and adding it to the rest.

I said, "But I did."

And left.

It's funny how things work out that way. You expect the worst, you hope for the best and, somewhere in the middle, life happens.

I've barely slept at all -- but I'm still smiling. Amazing!

This meant I was rather sleepy and generally not as lucid as I have been known to be at work today, but I was pleased to be presented with a dandy little certificate on behalf of the Biological Resources Program, recognizing my "contribution towards research" as one of the many faithful students working diligently (who received similar certificates) in their own way. I took it home and framed it, adding it to the visual cacophany upon my walls. Although the substantial paycheques I reap through my gainful employment are truly the source of my ability to buy food so that I might eat and live another day, the respect and esteem I receive from my workplace are surely the cause of my unyielding loyalty. My boss could ask me to kill an an infidel, and indeed I would. I keep a hammer in my briefcase just in case (the trick is to use the claw end).

I apologize for my clipped narrative tonight but this has been the week of sleep deprivation, and I have a lot to prepare for tomorrow (which I'll mention in just a moment). However, as you'll recall from last week, I told you that Broken had won a poetry contest on campus. I wanted to point you to more information about that contest, including her winning entry. You really should read this -- I insist.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I am expecting a houseguest -- but interestingly, this is a person I have never actually met. My friend Cruinne is driving to Ottawa all the way from Ohio today, with an anticipated arrival time sometime before one in the morning. The fact that I have had the pleasure of talking to this swell young woman at all is due to a rather convoluted and kooky set of events, beginning with my friend Clorinda. Clorinda (if you need background, you can find it in the cast of characters) has a friend named Ficus, and although he moved away from their hometown for the bright lights of California, he soon met a lovely young woman with whom he became quite taken. She moved in. Due to the fact that (through Clorinda), Ficus was an avid reader of my website, Cruinne by default became one too. He would often read that day's Snivel to her, and as time went on she developed a sense of connection with me, as many people continuously exposed to my ramblings do. We talked rather sporadically through e-mail, with long hiatus periods between illuminating dialogues, but this fall she began to make herself known again, prompted by some difficulties in her relationship. Our earlier conversations consisted largely of whining about our respective love lives, and to be perfectly honest our recent conversations have a similar scope as well. Happily for the two of us, my ever-entwining friendship with Dorothy is becoming more and more wonderful all the time, and Cruinne and Ficus have quite suddenly undertaken the most delightfully earnest dialogues, and she is getting ready to go visit him again (having moved out to give him space this fall) in sunny California. Independently of all this, we both thought it would be swell to spend some time during my delicious reading week relaxing in one another's company without the monotony of e-mail, the chatter of ICQ, or the expensive tease of telephone calls. We are going to do simple, touristy things, such as visiting the Parliament buildings, taking zillions of photographs, exploring the National Gallery, and -- did I mention coffee? Yes, lots of coffee.

That said, I have to spend tomorrow (that is, today, but you see I wrote this at 2 o'clock Saturday morning, and not at whatever later point of the day you are reading this now) cleaning my house and my bedroom (which I am surrendering to my guest -- no small sacrifice indeed! If only I had some pornography, I could run around trying to find places to hide it, like some deranged, lecherous, Easter bunny) in anticipation of Cruinne's arrival, so please do forgive me for needing sleep. I'll keep you thoroughly posted as to how my weekend goes, of course.

Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.

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